Pillow Angel Ethics 12/03/16

Pillow Angel Ethics is an article written by Nancy Gibbs about a treatment that has raised serious ethical concerns. The treatment in question is called the "Ashley Treatment" and was named after the procedure done on a 6- year old girl named Ashley, who suffers from brain damage. The article discusses Ashley's circumstances and what was done to "improve" her quality of life. She was given a high dose estrogen treatment to keep her from growing and doctors removed her uterus, to prevent potential discomfort from menstrual cramps and pregnancy in the event of rape, and her breast buds, because of the family's history of cancer and fibrocystic disease. Ashley's parents felt that as Ashley grew bigger it would be more difficult to care for her so they thought keeping her small would benefit both Ashley, by making "it more possible to include her in typical family life and activities that provide her with needed comfort, closeness, security and love", and her caregivers, by not letting her be an inconvenience to them. The author used a lot of viewpoints from many doctors and important medical facts about Ashley's case and therefore developed logos in her article. Gibbs mentioned how many doctors found that the benefits of the treatment outweighed the cons but others found the treatment to be dangerous. The high dose estrogen treatment has never been used on a child this young and therefore there was no guarantee that it wouldn't harm Ashley and put her life at risk. 

The article was very effective in letting the readers decide for themselves whether or not the treatment given to Ashley was ethically correct. It was not biased, and did not lean toward any particular side of the controversial topic. I have not been able to form a decision on whether or not Ashley's treatment was ethical but morally I found it was wrong. Yes, there was consent from her parents since Ashley is not 18 yet and yes, the doctors did a lot of research before doing the procedure to see if it was harmful in any way, but the treatment violated Ashley's human rights. She may not be able to make the decision for herself but that does not make it right that the parents speak about her as if she is an object to bring along to places. I felt that the treatment was done out of convenience for the parents and by removing parts of her body the doctors and parents took away Ashley's self identity.